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Multilingual education for European minoritylanguages: The Basque Country and Friesland
Durk Gorter • Jasone Cenoz
Published online: 13 December 2011
� The Author(s) 2011. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract Over the last three decades, regional minority languages in Europe haveregained increased recognition and support. Their revitalisation is partly due to their
being taught in schools. Multilingualism has special characteristics for speakers of
minority languages and it poses unique challenges for learning minority languages.
This article looks at the cases of Basque and Frisian, comparing and contrasting
their similarities and differences. The educational system in the Basque Autono-
mous Community underwent an important transformation, starting in 1979 from a
situation where less than 5 per cent of all teachers were capable of teaching through
Basque. Today this figure has changed to more than 80 per cent. An innovative
approach was chosen for teaching the minority language, Basque, alongside the
dominant language, Spanish, and the international language, English. The outcome
is a substantial increase in the proficiency in the minority language among the
younger age groups. The decline of the minority language has thus been success-
fully reversed and one of the major challenges now is to uphold a sustainable
educational system. By contrast, the Frisian language has fared less well in the
Netherlands, where developments over the last 30 years have been much slower and
the results more modest. Here policy-making for education and for language is
caught in a continuous debate between a weak provincial level and a powerful
central state level. Overall, multilingualism as a resource for individuals is valued
for ‘‘bigger’’ languages such as English, French and German, but not for a ‘‘small’’
language such as Frisian. Nevertheless, a few trilingual experiments have been
D. Gorter (&)Department of Theory and History of Education, FICE, IKERBASQUE, University of the Basque
Country, Tolosa Hiribidea 70, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
J. Cenoz
Department of Research Methods in Education, FICE, University of the Basque Country,
Tolosa Hiribidea 70, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
123
Int Rev Educ (2011) 57:651–666
DOI 10.1007/s11159-011-9248-2
carried out in some schools in Friesland in teaching Frisian, Dutch and English.
These experiments may also be instructive for other cases of minority languages of a
‘‘moderate strength’’. In the cases of both Basque and Frisian multilingualism is
generally perceived as an important resource.
Keywords Basque in France and Spain � Frisian in the Netherlands �Educational language policies � Models of language schooling �Outcomes of bilingual education � Trilingual education
Résumé Enseignement multilingue en faveur des langues minoritaires en Europe :Pays basque et Frise – Depuis trois décennies, les langues minoritaires régionales en
Europe bénéficient d’un regain de reconnaissance et de soutien. Leur reviviscence
est due en partie à ce qu’elles sont enseignées dans les établissements scolaires. Le
multilinguisme revêt des caractéristiques spécifiques pour les locuteurs des langues
minoritaires, et pose des défis propres à l’apprentissage de ces langues. Les auteurs
de cet article analysent les cas du Pays basque et de la Frise, en comparant et
opposant leurs similitudes et différences. Le système éducatif de la Communauté
autonome du Pays basque a connu une importante transformation amorcée en 1979,
alors que moins de 5 pour cent du corps enseignant était en mesure d’exercer en
langue basque. Aujourd’hui, ce chiffre est passé à plus de 80 pour cent. Une
approche innovante a été adoptée pour enseigner la langue minoritaire basque,
parallèlement à la langue dominante, l’espagnol, et à la langue internationale,
l’anglais. Le résultat est une amélioration considérable de la maı̂trise du basque
parmi les jeunes. L’ancien déclin de la langue minoritaire a ainsi été inversé avec
succès, et l’un des défis majeurs aujourd’hui consiste à pérenniser ce système
éducatif. En revanche, la langue frisonne a connu un destin moins radieux aux
Pays-Bas, où les avancées au cours des 30 dernières années ont été beaucoup plus
lentes et les résultats plus modestes. La conception des politiques éducatives et
linguistiques est enlisée dans une controverse permanente entre une province faible
et un État central puissant. Mais surtout, le multilinguisme appréhendé comme
richesse individuelle est valorisé pour les « grandes » langues comme l’anglais, le
français et l’allemand, et non pas pour une « petite » langue telle que le frison.
Néanmoins, quelques expériences trilingues ont été tentées dans certaines écoles de
la province de Frise avec l’enseignement du frison, du néerlandais et de l’anglais.
Ces expériences peuvent être instructives pour d’autres langues minoritaires
de « force moyenne ». Dans les deux cas du basque et du frison, le multilinguisme
est ressenti de manière générale comme une précieuse ressource.
Zusammenfassung Mehrsprachige Bildung und europäische Minderheitenspra-chen: das Baskenland und Friesland – In den vergangenen drei Jahrzehnten wurde
regionalen Minderheitensprachen in Europa wieder mehr Anerkennung und
Unterstützung zuteil. Ihre Wiederbelebung ist teilweise darauf zurückzuführen, dass
sie in Schulen unterrichtet werden. Für die Sprecher von Minderheitensprachen
birgt die Mehrsprachigkeit einige Besonderheiten, und sie stellt zudem spezifische
Anforderungen an den Erwerb von Minderheitensprachen. Dieser Artikel beschäf-
tigt sich mit dem Baskenland und mit Friesland und arbeitet deren Ähnlichkeiten
652 D. Gorter, J. Cenoz
123
und Unterschiede heraus. Das Schulsystem im autonomen Baskenland hat einen
enormen Wandlungsprozess hinter sich. Dieser begann 1979 in einer Zeit, in der
weniger als 5 Prozent aller Lehrkräfte in der Lage waren, ihren Unterricht in
baskischer Sprache zu erteilen. Heute ist deren Zahl auf über 80 Prozent gestiegen.
Für den Unterricht in der Minderheitensprache Baskisch, neben dem dominanten
Spanisch und dem internationalen Englisch, wurde ein innovativer Ansatz gewählt.
Dies hat dazu geführt, dass die jüngeren Altersgruppen die Minderheitensprache
heute erheblich besser beherrschen. Der Niedergang der Minderheitensprache
wurde somit erfolgreich umgekehrt, und eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben ist nunmehr
die Gestaltung eines zukunftsfähigen Bildungssystems. Im Gegensatz dazu war der
friesischen Sprache in den Niederlanden weniger Erfolg beschieden. Dort haben
sich die Dinge in den letzten 30 Jahren viel langsamer entwickelt und die
Ergebnisse sind bescheidener. Hier geraten Bildungspolitik und Sprachpolitik
ständig zwischen die Fronten einer schwachen Provinzebene und eines mächtigen
Zentralstaats. Insgesamt genießt die Mehrsprachigkeit als individuelle Kompetenz
bei ,,großen‘‘ Sprachen, wie zum Beispiel Englisch, Französisch und Deutsch, hohe
Wertschätzung, nicht jedoch bei einer ,,kleinen‘‘ Sprache wie Friesisch. Gleichwohl
wurden in einigen Schulen Frieslands einige Experimente mit dreisprachigem
Unterricht in Friesisch, Niederländisch und Englisch durchgeführt. Möglicherweise
sind die Erkenntnisse aus diesen Experimenten auch für andere Fälle ,,weniger
bedeutender‘‘ Minderheitensprachen lehrreich. Sowohl im Baskischen als auch im
Friesischen gilt Mehrsprachigkeit allgemein als wichtige Kompetenz.
Resumen Educación multilingüe para lenguas minoritarias europeas: El Paı́sVasco y Frisia – A lo largo de las tres últimas décadas, las lenguas regionales
minoritarias han vuelto a recibir en Europa un creciente apoyo y reconocimiento. Su
revitalización se debe, en parte, a que sean enseñadas en las escuelas. El multil-
ingüismo tiene caracterı́sticas especiales para quienes hablan lenguas minoritarias y
supone un reto excepcional para el aprendizaje de lenguas minoritarias. Este artı́culo
está dedicado a los casos del vasco y del frisio, comparando y contrastando sus
similitudes y diferencias. El sistema educativo de la Comunidad Autónoma Vasca
ha experimentado una transformación importante desde 1979, cuando menos del 5
por ciento de todos los docentes estaban capacitados para enseñar mediante la
lengua vasca. Hoy, este porcentaje llega a superar el 80 por ciento. Se ha adoptado
un enfoque innovador al enseñar la lengua minoritaria, el vasco, junto con la lengua
dominante, el español, y el inglés como lengua internacional. El resultado es un
incremento sustancial de conocimiento de la lengua minoritaria entre la gente más
joven. Por lo tanto, el declive de la lengua minoritaria se ha revertido con éxito;
ahora, uno de los mayores retos es mantener un sistema educativo sostenible. Por lo
contrario, la lengua frisia ha prosperado menos en los Paı́ses Bajos, donde la evo-
lución a lo largo de los últimos 30 años ha sido mucho más lenta, con resultados más
modestos. Aquı́, las polı́ticas adoptadas para la educación y la lengua están atra-
padas en un debate permanente entre un débil nivel provincial y un fuerte nivel de
Estado central. En términos generales, el multilingüismo está bien valorado como
recurso para las personas cuando se trata de lenguas ‘‘más importantes’’, tales como
el inglés, el francés o el alemán, pero no para una lengua ‘‘menos importante’’ como
Multilingual education for European minority languages 653
123
el frisio. De todas maneras, se han realizado algunos experimentos trilingües en
algunas escuelas de Frisia donde se ha enseñado frisio, holandés e inglés. Estos
ensayos también pueden ser útiles para otros casos con lenguas minoritarias de
‘‘poder moderado’’. En los casos del vasco como del frisio, el multilingüismo se
percibe, en lı́neas generales, como recurso importante.
Minority languages have been ignored to a large extent by speakers of majority
languages. For minority language speakers themselves their languages are useful in
everyday communication. However, minority languages differ in how far they are
also used in other, more formal domains in society. Some minority languages, such
654 D. Gorter, J. Cenoz
123
as Basque, are used in a wide range of social fields. Other minority languages – and
Frisian is a good example – have obtained a rather modest presence in domains such
as government, the media, economic and social life. The Basque and Frisian
language cases will be contrasted and taken as complementary in the discussion in
this article. There are, of course, still other minority languages which are hardly
used outside the sphere of the family and the home.
Efforts to revive minority languages usually begin with a focus on education.
Compared to dominant languages, the use of minority languages in education is
limited in most cases, but increasingly not just two but sometimes three and even
four languages are used (Cenoz and Gorter 2005). The study of the teaching of
minority languages can make a significant contribution to educational research. The
teaching of minority languages is linked to many core areas of research, including
first language (L1) literacy, second language acquisition, bilingualism and
multilingualism, language and identity, language policy and the acquisition of
additional languages. Analysing experience and the outcomes of research conducted
in these settings can have implications for bi/multilingual education as well as for
language learning and language acquisition in other educational settings.
Minority languages in Western Europe
Most of the population in Europe and North America are monolingual in one of the
‘‘big’’ languages, and these speakers are only exposed to other languages in
the school context or through the media. This is not the case in many other parts of
the world. Being monolingual is exceptional in the case of speakers of minority
languages. In Western Europe, speakers of minority languages such as Basque and
Frisian, but also others such as Catalan, Irish, Welsh, Friulian and Sámi, need to be
multilingual. They all speak at least the majority language they are in contact with.
In many cases, when the majority language is not English, they also need to have
some command of English as the ‘‘language of wider communication’’. Minority
language speakers are at least bilingual and learn additional languages at school (see
also Busch 2011).
The multi-faceted constellation of languages of Europe comprises a range of
minority languages (Extra and Gorter 2008). There are so-called ‘‘unique’’ minority
languages, which are spoken in one or sometimes more than one state, but are not
the dominant language of any state. These minorities may be extremely small and
on the verge of extinction, such as Livonian in Latvia or Ume Sámi in Sweden,
where the youngest speakers are over 60 years of age. The category also comprises
language groups that have obtained official status, a fair degree of political and
economic support and strong favourable attitudes by their speakers in order to
revitalise these languages and give them a sustainable future.
Other language groups have a ‘‘kin-state’’. They are a minority in one state but
the official dominant language in another, neighbouring state. Examples of such
language groups are Albanian in Italy and Greece; Croatian in Italy and Austria and
German in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy and Poland.
Multilingual education for European minority languages 655
123
A few minority languages are official state languages, but in practice they
function in sociological and economic terms largely in the same way as other
minority languages. Such is the case of Luxembourgish, which is official in
Luxembourg but has to compete with French and German, or Irish which is the first
official language of the Irish Republic, but is dominated to a large extent by English.
The 27 member states of the European Union share 23 official languages (European
Commission 2007), among which is Irish, but not Luxembourgish. In a wider
perspective we see that the 47 member states of the Council of Europe have 41
languages as official state languages. But these are still only a small subset of the
estimated 195 language communities in Europe (Pan 2009).
The case of Basque
The Basque Country spreads along the Bay of Biscay, north and south of the
Pyrenees in France and Spain. The population of the Basque Country is
approximately three million and the most populated area is the Basque Autonomous
Community (BAC) in Spain, with over two million inhabitants. Basque is
completely different from French and Spanish and is the only non-Indo-European
language in Western Europe. Nowadays Basque has approximately 600,000
speakers, all of whom are also fluent in either Spanish or French. Basque has an
important literary tradition, but the unification of the Basque language into one
standard for the written language is relatively recent. Today there is a rich literate
environment. The written language can be ‘‘consumed’’ through one daily
newspaper, numerous journals and magazines, thousands of books on a wide range
of topics, omnipresence in public signage and advertisements and an uncountable
number of Basque websites. At the same time the production of written materials in
the majority language, Spanish, is many times higher and it has a dominant presence
in Basque society.
According to a recent socio-linguistic survey (Basque Government 2008) there
are important regional differences in levels of knowledge of Basque. In Table 1 we
can see the percentages for knowledge of Basque in the BAC, in Navarre and in the
area of Iparraldea in France.
The number of Basque speakers has increased slowly in the BAC over the last
decades. The survey of 1991 showed that 24.1 per cent of the BAC was proficient in
Basque; this increased to 27 per cent in 1996, further to 29.4 per cent in 2001 and to
30.1 per cent in the last survey. There is also a slight increase in Navarre (from 9.5
Table 1 Knowledge of Basque in the Basque Country according to sub-area (in percentages)
BAC Navarre Iparraldea
Proficient in Basque 30.1 11.1 22.5
Passive skills in Basque 18.3 7.6 8.6
No knowledge of Basque 51.5 81.3 68.9
Source IV Inkesta Soziolinguistikoa (Basque Government 2008)
656 D. Gorter, J. Cenoz
123
per cent in 1991 to 11.1 per cent in 2006). However, the proportion of speakers in
Iparraldea in France is decreasing (from 26.4 per cent in 1996 to 22.5 per cent in
2006).
There are important differences in the status of Basque in the three different
areas. Since 1979 Basque has had co-official status in the BAC and there is a strong
language policy. Basque is also official in the Northern area of Navarre (see Oroz
and Sotés 2008). In Iparraldea in France, the status of Basque is much weaker.
The language has a strong oral tradition as language of the community, but due to
the robust language policy its use in more formal domains of society is also on the
increase, in particular in the BAC. The rest of this article will focus on the BAC.
The use of Basque in education
In the BAC, three models of language schooling were established (models A, B and
D).
• The A-model programme is intended for native speakers of Spanish who chooseto be instructed in Spanish. Basque is taught as a subject for four to five hours a
week. The outcome is minimal proficiency in Basque as a second language.
• The B-model programme is intended for native speakers of Spanish who want tobe bilingual in Basque and Spanish. Both Basque and Spanish are used as
languages of instruction for approximately 50 per cent of school time, although
there is considerable variation from school to school (Arzamendi and Genesee
1997).
• The D-model programme was originally created for native speakers of Basque.Basque is the language of instruction, and Spanish is taught as a subject for four
to five hours a week. This model currently also includes a large number of
students with Spanish as their first language. The intensive use of Basque and
the dominant position of Spanish in society lead to high levels of proficiency in
both languages.
The distribution of students in the different models can be seen in Table 2.
D-model, with Basque as the language of instruction, is the most popular,
followed by B-model. Knowledge of Basque has an important value in society
because it is required for many government-related jobs and has advantages in many
jobs in the private sector as well. Because there is continuity from primary to
secondary school, the use of Basque as the language of instruction in secondary
Table 2 Percentages of pupils in the different models in the BAC 2008–2009
A Spanish B (Basque & Spanish) D Basque
Primary (6–12) 8.80% 29.96% 60.47%
Compulsory secondary (12–16) 19.08% 27.54% 52.64%
Source Basque Government Department of Education (www.hezkuntza.net)
Note The percentages do not add up to 100 per cent because a limited number of students who stay in theBAC for a short period do not study Basque
Multilingual education for European minority languages 657
123
http://www.hezkuntza.net
school is likely to increase in the near future when these children get older.
Although there are some geographic differences related to the number of home
language speakers of Basque, the D-model can be found all across the BAC, and
parents have a choice in the type of school to which they send their child, although
in small villages with relatively higher proportions of Basque speakers there is little
or no demand for the A-model.
The increase in the use of Basque as the language of instruction over the last
30 years has had important implications for the educational system. Whereas in
1979 less than 5 per cent of all teachers were capable of teaching through the
minority languages, today over 80 per cent of the teachers are able to use Basque
(Zalbide and Cenoz 2008). To become a primary school teacher requires taking a
four-year course at one of the teacher training colleges which are part of the
university. An important part of the course includes teaching practice at primary
schools. Secondary school teachers obtain a university degree in a particular subject
and subsequently undergo a course of advanced teacher training (at Master degree
level). In-service language training for Basque has been very important. Teachers
who start without knowledge of Basque have the right to three years of full-time
learning Basque, during which period they are released from teaching duties and
keep their full pay. The BAC also has a strong system of teacher support centres.
The Department of Education in the BAC runs the Euskal Ikasmaterialgintza(EIMA) programme, whereby the Department subsidises learning materials to makesure that parents do not have to pay more for school materials in Basque because of
the smaller market. School materials subsidised include books, wall charts, videos,
software programmes and CD-ROMs, as well as learning materials via the internet.
Awards are given annually to the best new materials, to promote quality. In this way
the different publishing houses can offer a complete range of teaching and reference
materials for primary and secondary education. Highly-specialised materials, for
example for vocational training, are usually made available through the internet
rather than in print.
The outcomes of bilingual education
There has been a large number of research studies and evaluations of bilingual
education in the BAC (see Cenoz 2008). The results indicate that using Basque as
the language of instruction results in a high level of proficiency in the second
language, at no cost to people’s first language proficiency or academic development.
Among others it was shown that the results for the D-model school are better than
for the B-model. Josu Sierra (2008) reports a study that took the Level B2
(‘‘independent language user’’) of the Council of Europe as its point of departure. It
was shown that pupils from the D-model scored significantly higher (68 per cent
passed) in Basque than pupils from the B-model (32.6 per cent passed), whereas
the test was too difficult for pupils from the A-model. Higher proficiency in the
minority language is equivalent to a more balanced bilingualism because of the
extended knowledge of Spanish. This knowledge of two languages provides some
advantages when acquiring English as a third language. This effect can be explained
658 D. Gorter, J. Cenoz
123
as being related to a higher development of metalinguistic awareness and bilinguals’
wider linguistic repertoire (see also Cenoz 2003).
The socio-linguistic context can have an important influence on language use. It
is common for schoolchildren in Spanish-speaking areas to use Spanish among each
other but Basque with the teacher; even in the D-model. There are special language
policy plans for schools to promote the use of Basque (Aldekoa and Gardner 2002;
Zalbide and Cenoz 2008), but the minority status of Basque in society cannot
completely counterbalance the work done by schools.
The use of English in education
The Basque Country has also been affected by the worldwide spread of English as a
language of wider communication and the increasing multilingualism and multi-
culturalism resulting from immigration.
English is not used much in everyday life in the BAC, but parents demand more
instruction in English. The early introduction of English in kindergarten was an
innovation in the educational system in the BAC from the 1990s. The idea is that
more years of exposure to English will result in higher levels of proficiency.
However, research carried out in the Basque Country shows that when exposure is
limited (two to three hours per week) younger children do not necessarily make
more progress than older children (see Garcı́a Mayo & Garcı́a Lecumberri 2003;
Cenoz 2009).
In the last few years, an increasing number of immigrants have been coming to
the Basque Country. Immigrants make up 6.5 per cent of the population in the BAC
and 12.2 per cent in Navarre (Instituto Nacional de Estadı́stica 2008). Some of the
immigrant students speak Spanish because they come from Spanish-speaking
countries in Latin America, but the arrival of speakers of other languages creates a
new challenge for a school system that already has three languages.
It is clear that the boundaries between the A, B and D models designed in the
early 1980s are nowadays blurred because of the increasing number of Spanish-
speaking students in the D model, the use of English as an additional language of
instruction and the arrival of speakers of other languages.
Education evaluation policy
Basque students have been evaluated against the yardstick of an ideal monolingual
speaker of Spanish and an ideal monolingual speaker of Basque. According to these
evaluations, Basque L1 students who speak Basque at home, use Basque as the
language of instruction and live in a Basque-speaking area attain a very good
command of Spanish. However, it may be unrealistic that they achieve exactly the
same level of proficiency in Spanish as other students who use Spanish for all
purposes all the time, except for a very limited number of hours of Basque and
English lessons at school (see Santiago et al. 2008). However, it would be better to
evaluate students in the Basque educational system as multilingual speakers who
have a linguistic repertoire which is different from that of monolinguals. A holistic
view of multilingual proficiency as a reference is more challenging and difficult to
Multilingual education for European minority languages 659
123
put into practice in syllabus design, teaching practice and assessment, but it
approaches the teaching of different languages from a more realistic perspective.
Some innovative efforts in the direction of an integrated curriculum are being made
in a limited number of schools (Elorza and Muñoa 2008).
The case of Frisian
The province of Friesland is located in the north of the Netherlands. It has almost
650,000 inhabitants. Frisian is a member of the branch of West-Germanic languages
of the Indo-European language family. Although the languages are not mutually
comprehensible, for a Dutch speaker it is relatively easy to learn to understand
Frisian.
Dutch is the dominant language in society and in education as well. Frisian has
not been able to obtain a substantial part of the central language functions in modern
society, a fate it shares with many other minority languages (Extra and Gorter 2008,
pp. 24–32). However, Frisian is still spoken by more than half of the population as
their first language. It is used mainly in situations of informal communication in the
family, the community and the lower work sphere. Inter-generational transmission
of the language is at risk among younger parents (Foekema 2004). The results of
language surveys over the past 40 years have shown a remarkable stability in the
receptive skills of understanding and reading. As shown in Table 3, the ability to
speak Frisian is gradually decreasing, whereas writing skills seem to have increased
(Provinsje Fryslân 2007).
English can no longer be considered to be a foreign language in Friesland, but
more of a second or a third language. People are confronted with English on an
everyday basis through television, advertisements, internet and tourism. According
to the Eurobarometer survey (2006) 87 per cent of the inhabitants of the Netherlands
claim they are able to have a conversation in English. This proportion is similar to
Sweden or Denmark, and more than double the average of the European Union.
The use of Frisian in education
Schools in Friesland are fully integrated in the centralised system of education in the
Netherlands. The Frisian language has attained a marginal presence on all levels of
education.
Playgroups and day-care centres (for children aged two to four) are left free intheir choice of language. In most centres if children speak Frisian, in principle, they
Table 3 Proportion of thepopulation competent in Frisian
(percentages)
Source Provinsje Fryslân(2007, p. 5)
Skill/year 1967 1980 1994 2007
Understand 97% 94% 94% 94%
Read 69% 65% 64% 75%
Speak 85% 73% 74% 74%
Write 11% 10% 17% 26%
660 D. Gorter, J. Cenoz
123
will be responded to in Frisian (except when the teacher cannot speak Frisian).
Around 17 per cent of the age group participates in playgroups or centres for day-
care that are wholly Frisian or systematically bilingual (Boneschansker 2006).
Primary schools are attended by children aged 4 to 12 (grades 1 to 8). Allprimary schools in Friesland have a legal obligation to teach Dutch, Frisian and
English, the latter in the two highest grades. The most common pattern is to teach
Frisian for half an hour per week as a subject in the two lowest grades and one full
lesson in grades 3 to 8, which equals a total of some 320 h over the whole primary
school period. The overall situation for the teaching of Frisian as a subject has
hardly changed since 1980 when Frisian was introduced as a compulsory subject.
The position of Frisian is also modest as a medium of instruction for other subjects.
In the lowest grades, 34 per cent of the schools use some Frisian for creative
subjects and physical instruction. In the higher grades only 11 per cent of all
primary schools use Frisian as a medium of instruction (Inspectie 2006, p. 32).
English is taught as a subject for one lesson a week in the two highest grades. This is
a general obligation in the Netherlands. There is no early introduction of English in
Friesland thus far.
Secondary education has a core curriculum of 15 subjects, but schools are free todecide how much time they want to devote to each subject. Frisian is an obligatory
subject in secondary education, but only 62 per cent of all schools do indeed offer
Frisian (Inspectie 2006, p. 45). Frisian is only an optional subject in the higher
grades. Dutch and English are taught as a subject in all schools. Sometimes German
and French can be chosen as well.
At tertiary level there are three institutes of professional training in the capital,Ljouwert/Leeuwarden. The trend is to provide more courses through the medium of
English. Although legally Frisian is allowed in oral exams or in writing a thesis, in
practice its use is exceptional. Teacher training in Friesland is similar to that in the
rest of the Netherlands in terms of its curriculum and quality control. The only
additional qualification is that in teacher training for primary education students
must follow a Frisian language course during the first two years of their training.
Frisian is optional in the third year. By taking those courses, the students obtain a
special certificate for Frisian.
The use of English in education
An experiment with trilingual education was set up to stimulate the teaching of
Frisian. A basically bilingual model was developed (Ytsma 2000). Seven primary
schools located in small villages with a total of approximately 400 pupils
participated in the project (Ytsma 2002). In the model, 50 per cent of the teaching
time is given to Frisian and the other 50 per cent to Dutch. English is introduced as a
subject in the sixth grade (one year earlier than in other schools) and taught as a
subject and used as language of instruction for a total of about 20 per cent of the
time in the last two grades (Gorter 2005). The goal is to meet the attainment targets
for both Frisian and Dutch to the full extent (which is not the case in most other
schools). Moreover, the pupils have to reach a basic communicative ability in
English (Van Ruijven and Ytsma 2008). The main difference between the trilingual
Multilingual education for European minority languages 661
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schools and other primary schools in Friesland is in the larger amount of time taught
through Frisian. Parents are consulted before a school adopts a trilingual programme
and generally support the aim of trilingual competences for their children. Their
involvement with the trilingual school is relatively high, but not substantially
different from other schools in Friesland.
The results of the Trilingual Schools Project were not surprising. Hester Deelstra
and Jehannes Ytsma (2005) compared the language background, language attitudes,
vocabulary and reading skills in Frisian and in Dutch of students from the
experimental trilingual schools and the control schools, which have Frisian as a
subject for one hour per week. On most variables the differences in outcomes were
small, but the students in the experimental schools scored higher on technical
reading skills in Frisian. Bernie Van Ruijven and Jehannes Ytsma (2008)
summarised the end results for the eight years of the longitudinal study. The
differences between the experimental and the control schools were not significant
for Dutch literacy, but on Frisian technical reading skills the children at the
experimental schools scored higher. The reading and writing of Frisian is a
relatively important part of the curriculum. The systematic bilingual approach had
no negative influence on proficiency in the majority language and positive effects
for the minority language.
Another important result was that literacy skills for English (reading and writing)
differed very little between the schools. The aim of obtaining better literacy results
in English was not fulfilled, although the children of the experimental schools
showed more confidence in speaking English. After the experimental stage, the
trilingual schools have become one of the focal points of provincial language policy.
Educational language policy
The position of Frisian in education remains rather weak because it is not seen as an
important condition for socio-economic success. In general Frisian is not graded for
the report card and when it is, it does not count for much (Van der Bij and Valk
2005). Still, the overall point of departure for Frisian as a minority language in
society is favourable in terms of the relative number of speakers and the basic
positive attitudes among the population, at least compared to many other minority
languages in Europe (Nelde et al. 1996).
In Friesland, as elsewhere, multilingualism in society is increasing. Today many
children come from mixed-language families. The number of immigrants (about 9.3
per cent so-called ‘‘Western’’ and ‘‘non-Western’’ immigrants) has increased,
bringing a wide range of different home languages to the school (Centraal Bureau
voor de Statistiek 2011), but this is not taken into account in the curriculum. In the
classroom, the teacher will be confronted with this diversity and has to deal with a
more complicated educational practice. In general, speaking different languages is
valued positively, but minority languages such as Frisian or immigrant languages
are lower on the prestige scale than English or other so-called modern languages
such as French or German.
662 D. Gorter, J. Cenoz
123
Both cases compared
It has become clear that the two situations of Basque and Frisian have many
important differences, but also share some characteristics, most of which they also
have in common with other minority languages in Europe (see also Busch 2011).
Differences
Obviously Basque and Frisian do not have the same linguistic origin. Frisian is a
Germanic language, but Basque is a non-Indo-European language of unknown
origin. Thus, the linguistic distance between the minority language and the majority
language(s) is not the same in these two cases. Basque is very different from
Spanish and French, the Romance languages it is in contact with. Frisian is
linguistically close to Dutch, also a Germanic language. The degree of official
protection and promotion of these two languages is different. Basque is a co-official
language (along with Spanish) in Spain but in France its legal status is much
weaker. Frisian has obtained limited official recognition.
The extent to which both languages are used as the main language of instruction
varies considerably. Basque has become the main language of instruction in the
BAC but its use is not as strong in other areas where Basque is spoken. The position
of Frisian in education is weaker and overall developments are slow.
The use of English presents another difference between the two situations. In
both cases English is a third language in the school curriculum. But there are
important differences between the more extensive use of English in society in
Friesland and the more limited use of English in the Basque Country.
Similarities
There are several similarities between Basque and Frisian. Both are autochthonous
languages, because they originate from the areas where they are still spoken today.
They are ‘‘unique’’ in the sense of not being spoken in other states as a majority
language. Both languages are in contact with a ‘‘stronger’’ language (Spanish and
Dutch, respectively) and all speakers of the minority language are also fluent in the
national language, which is also part of the school curriculum. Moreover, both
languages are spoken in states that are members of the European Union (EU): Spain
and the Netherlands. Thus their situations are influenced by the language policies of
the EU and particularly of the Council of Europe through the European Charter for
Regional or Minority Languages (Council of Europe 1992). The Charter is part of
the legal framework to promote and protect the cultural heritage of languages in
Europe (De Bot and Gorter 2005, p. 613). Both Spain and the Netherlands have
signed and ratified the Charter, whereby different degrees of protection were
promised. For Basque it added little to the level of promotion already offered by the
regional governments. For Frisian the ratification and monitoring of the Charter has
implied important moral support. The general policy on multilingualism as
developed by the European Commission (2008) has hardly any direct impact on
national or regional language policies in both cases, even though in society in
Multilingual education for European minority languages 663
123
general and in the education system in particular the value attached to multilin-
gualism seems to be increasing.
Common challenges
The two situations have some challenges in common with other European minority
languages. These two minority languages have obtained legal support and funding
for their use in education even though there are important differences.
Minority languages such as Basque and Frisian face more problems than majority
languages in the production of educational materials. The obvious reason is that
there is a more limited market for learning materials. Moreover, minority languages
often have a weak tradition in use as an academic language. Another challenge is the
limited availability of qualified teachers. Usually there are fewer qualified teachers
with a good command of a minority language than of a majority language. In some
situations it may also be difficult to get specialised training to teach some specific
minority languages or to teach through these languages.
Finally, modern society brings new challenges. The educational contexts of
Basque and Frisian face new challenges deriving from the immigration of speakers
of other languages, new technologies of communication, as well as the effects of
tourism and globalisation. Schools nowadays have to be aware of these challenges
and be prepared to teach for multilingualism.
Research on minority languages
Research on minority languages is not well known by speakers of ‘‘big’’ languages,
but it is relevant to many areas (Cenoz and Gorter 2008). It can refer to situations of
bilingual and multilingual education involving the use of minority, majority and
foreign languages as languages of instruction. These situations include the spread of
content-based instruction, also known as Content and Language Integrated Learning
(CLIL), as an effective approach to language teaching in educational settings.
Furthermore, minority languages in education can be of interest to researchers
working on language policy and language planning or language assessment.
This discussion of Basque and Frisian focuses on the achievements of these
minority languages in education in two different regions in Europe, but they may
also be relevant for researchers elsewhere in Europe and on other continents
worldwide. Teaching in minority languages is a dynamic process and faces new
challenges. In this article we have presented two interesting cases and we suggest
that a more holistic approach to research can be helpful in better understanding the
diversity of a multilingual and multicultural world.
Acknowledgments This article is one of the outcomes of the work for the Donostia Research group onEducation and Multilingualism (DREAM) supported by the Government of the Basque Country [BOPV
06.05.2010, p. 15]; and the project ‘‘La competencia plurilingüe en el contexto escolar’’ supported by the
Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [grant number EDU2009-11601].
664 D. Gorter, J. Cenoz
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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any med-
ium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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The authors
Durk Gorter is Ikerbasque research professor in the Faculty of Education of the University of the BasqueCountry in San Sebastian/Donostia, where he does work on multilingualism, European minority
languages and linguistic landscapes. He was a researcher in the sociology of language at the Fryske
Akademy in Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, and also part-time full professor in the
sociolinguistics of Frisian at the University of Amsterdam, with which he is still affiliated. Two recent
edited books are Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery (with Elana Shohamy) and MultingualEurope: Facts and Policies (with Guus Extra).
Jasone Cenoz is Professor of Research Methods in Education in the Faculty of Education at theUniversity of the Basque Country. Her research focuses on the acquisition of English as a third language,
bilingualism, multilingualism and education. She is the editor (in collaboration with Ulrike Jessner) of the
International Journal of Multilingualism. She is on the board of IAM (International Association ofMultilingualism). In collaboration with other colleagues, she has edited several books on bilingualism and
multilingualism. One of her recent publications is Towards Multilingual Education: Basque educationalresearch in international perspective.
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http://www.ine.es
Multilingual education for European minority languages: The Basque Country and FrieslandAbstractRésuméZusammenfassungResumenMinority languages in Western EuropeThe case of BasqueThe use of Basque in educationThe outcomes of bilingual educationThe use of English in educationEducation evaluation policy
The case of FrisianThe use of Frisian in educationThe use of English in educationEducational language policy
Both cases comparedDifferencesSimilaritiesCommon challenges
Research on minority languagesAcknowledgmentsReferences